It’s a hot August day, the sun blazing across a Petaluma farm. The air is filled with the chatter of track athletes, running forward, planting poles in the box, jumping and rotating their bodies through the air.
The Saturday morning weather is beating down on the track, the rhythmic thud of spikes echoing through the farm. Athletes chatter while they warm up, stretch and run through their drills.
Amidst the chaos, there is one calming presence.
Bruce Hotaling stands near the pit, offering guidance to the many pole vaulters from across the Bay Area, all eager to hear his insight. For 45 years, Hotaling has been a crucial presence in his pole vaulters’ lives.
Hotaling began pole vaulting at Church Farm School, an all-boys boarding school in Exton, Pennsylvania.
“I was in eighth grade at an all-boys boarding school,” Hotaling said, “you had to do a sport in a private school, and we only had three sports: cross-country, basketball and track. I walked down to the track, and I saw these poles on the ground. I asked one of the seniors ‘what do you do with these’ and he told me.”
Hotaling asked if he could try it. “He pointed me to the end of the track and said, ‘you’ve got to do it over there.’ It was a cow pit full of dirt and dust, but I tried it—and just kept doing it through senior year,” Hotaling said.
In Hotaling’s junior year (Spring 1961), he was awarded the Red Hat, presented by the school’s headmaster, for setting the school record for the pole vault. The following year, he broke his record, soaring to 12 feet, 10.5 inches—a height that still stands as the school’s benchmark.
“Where I went to college [at a small business school in Delaware], they didn’t have track. Then my pole vaulting career kind of ended,” Hotaling says.
Hotaling participated in a couple of decathlons before retiring from competition.
“My ex-wife had a relative who vaulted for Petaluma High School, and so I came in to help him with that,” Hotaling said.
What began as a favor turned into a lifelong commitment. Hotaling’s club, North Coast Vaulters, has seen athletes from ages 13 to 82. Most, however, are college-aged.
“I’ve got nine girls on college scholarships and four guys. Some come back during the summer to help out with coaching,” Hotaling said, “It’s a big family.”
Hotaling’s coaching deserves credit for Redwood’s success. Redwood first-year pole vaulting coach, Ben Schreck, has seen the firsthand impact of Hotaling’s training.
“About half of [Redwood’s pole vaulters] go to [Hotaling’s] to train in the offseason,” Schreck said. “People who train in the offseason are generally going to be improving more, because it’s a hard sport and you have to be pretty consistent with it.”
That consistency is paying off. Many of Redwood’s pole vaulters who attend Hotaling’s biweekly training are seeing improvement in their personal records (PRs).
“Antonio [Bayon] set the school record on [April 12] with a score of 15 feet, five inches, and [sophomore Vivienne Fitzgerald] had a big one foot PR at a meet. She jumped seven feet, six inches,” Schreck said. “We’ve had almost everyone hit a PR this season.”
Both Bayon and Fitzgerald are dedicated to training throughout the offseason under Hotaling.
“A lot of [pole vaulters] from Marin, Sonoma and Santa Rosa will go up [to Petaluma to train],” Schreck said.
It’s the variety of pole vaulters that makes athletes like senior Skylar Bramlette feel so supported.
“He creates this environment that people want to train in. So many vaulters go to him and now we have friends up in Petaluma that do what we do, because of the environment he creates,” Bramlette said.
Hotaling’s influence extends far beyond the sport, leaving a lasting impact on his vaulters.
“He’s had so much influence on me,” Bramlette said, “Redwood didn’t even have a [pole vaulting] coach until this year, and he’s the kind of person that’s like, ‘you can get better’.”
For Hotaling, it has never been about recognition or financial gain.
“We didn’t want to make [North Coast Vaulters] a business,” Hotaling said, “ I just enjoy watching the kids improve.”
